originally posted by: aorAki
Then why do you use the Imperial system, huh, huh?
Of course it's 'empire building'.

Because the metric system is confusing as hell when all of your standard construction units of measurement are imperial, like dump truck yields,
dimensional lumber, and much of our mapping not being to enough decimal places to capture the difference between US survey feet and international
feet, causing errors that get worse the further from datum you get. The conversion to metric would be a real pain in the ass for the engineering,
archetectural, and construction industry in the US.

That is untapped oil still in the ground. Estimated oil located on federally owned land.

If the US fell into an emergency situation those lands would be opened to corporations to tap and process.

Wars for resources are wars for corporations.

True.

However, you can suck it all out of the ground in increasing numbers, but I would wager that, domestically at least, we do not have to capacity to
refine more oil or refine it more quickly than we already do.

We're pretty much *at* our current refining capabilities. So, sucking more out of the ground won't help. We'd need more refineries.

The past 10 or more years there has been series of unfortunate events with refineries whenever prices started dropping. It was almost as if those
corporations deliberately caused them to drive up prices. They even closed down refineries that were perfectly good.

These threads are getting old. Obama unleashed Hell on the Middle East with overthrow, sit back and watch. He armed both sides and just sat there
watching the whole dam dumb show unfold. Just look at the migration patters over the last 8 years. Not since WWII have so many innocents been
displaced. All under your dear leaders watch and will be expanded with abandon if Bernie or Kankles wins.

Got through the first 10 minutes & liking it a lot so far. People forget that the us government is reliant on money/budgets & thus is a business. The
only real thing the president has full control of is the military & the MIC sure as heck needs some restructuring.
I dont trust Hillary or even Bernie to be able to do that effectively while still maintaining or growing the us as a military force.

The OP says "more war more weapons" etc.
just wondering if they even watched the video... Trumps line of we need to stop building democracies in other countries is kind of the total
antithesis of that.

That stuff came in when I was in high school. Excellent to be able to work between metric and Imperial. Especially when you have to convert mm to
inches. Easy. I still have a problem with gas consumption though. I blame you.

I watched/listened in its entirety. There's actually nothing "scary" about this speech and much of it actually makes sense. There needs to be a
paradigm shift in our foreign policy. Our last two presidents have destroyed what's left of respect of our country in the world and cemented our
current foreign policy as a disaster, especially in the Mideast/African region. We all know that Obama's goal was to "lead form behind" and proceeded
to weaken America's influence causing even more chaos and a humanitarian disaster.

That stuff came in when I was in high school. Excellent to be able to work between metric and Imperial. Especially when you have to convert mm to
inches. Easy. I still have a problem with gas consumption though. I blame you.

I don't hate the metric system in principle, I do hate it in practice in my profession, however. The state DOTs that switched to metric following GHW
Bush's edict in the 90s, mostly switched back to imperial as soon as TEA-21 approved it. They found that a significant percentage of engineers were
performing their designs and calculations in Imperial units, then converting them to metric as a final step purely to fulfill the minimum requirement
of the law. The lack of efficiency combined with the argument that it is unethical to force registered professional engineers outside of their
comfort zones in design and analysis when it's ultimately their butts on the line if something gets screwed up opened the door for demetrication. To
my knowledge, only a handful of states have stayed metric.

It is a real pain in the ass to pull as-builts from the late 90s-early 2000s because they're all metric.

No, conversion isn't the problem. That part is easy. The problem arises when all of your spreadsheets, manuals, and tables of factors and values are
in Imperial units and you have to convert all of these, too. *Some* of that material was converted by AASHTO and the FHWA for engineers' use, but
quite a lot of it wasn't.

I'm not talking about easy stuff like converting 1,000 cubic yards of pea gravel to cubic meters. I'm talking about running earth pressure and
geotechnical compaction calcs that were derived specifically for the exact soil in the area you're designing in and aren't easily convertible without
having access to the full scope of data that went into generating them. Even unitless coefficients used in drainage and runoff design are completely
different in the metric system. Can it be done? Of course. Will it someday become the US standard to also use the metric system? Almost certainly,
it will. It will take another 10-20 years of development time and teaching engineering students in college to work in the metric system for it to be
efficient, though.

FYI: for decades we were :it" where construction supplies were concerned, and that fact is one of the main reasons the US didn't convert years ago.
US Steel was king of the mountain for a long time and the US is by far the world's largest exporter of dimensional lumber. "Uncle Sam" isn't the one
making the call at this point, industry is, and those industries have opted to kick the can down the road as long as possible.

Quite frankly the World is getting tired of trying to explain science to America. Take offense at your political leaning.

Ah, feeling spry today, I see.

Quite frankly, America is getting tired of hearing the world's voice and wish for some goddamned silence for a change. The world has become very much
like that Simpson's gag of Homer making a toast: "To beer, the cause of and solution to, all of the world's problems." It's dochotomous. Either sit
and complain at and about America and consider us backwoods bumpkins whose opinions aren't as enlightened as the rest of the savage lands, or keep
looking towards us to resolve all of the world's ills as has been happening for many, many years now. As it presently stands, it's sort of like
walking up to a guy on the street and saying "Hey, you're a stinky dumbass. Uh, can I also please ask for some help figuring out what's wrong with my
car over there, pal?"

1. Invite new people into the discussion
2. Our resources are exhausted
3. We're crippled with wasteful spending
4. Our borders are open
5. Huge Trade Defecit is destroying us
6. Our Allies must contribute to their security burden

I agree with you.I find Hillary scarier than Trump though.That woman gives me the stone cold heebie jeebies.And im a horror movie and stories
fanatic.But yes the whole line up is pretty much surreal to me.As a South African it is not directly my problem,and we have a clown for a prez too,but
the American administration,policies and actions affect the whole world.Our clown is merely an embarrassment,and his actions as prez,does not circle
out globally.

" Those ships have been retrofitted and the newest carrier is 2 years old. Does that answer your question."

Military Technology Evolves at a Frightening Pace , look at the Recent Russian and Chinese Military Buildup in the Middle East and Southeast Asia .
The United States Military has to keep one step ahead of those two adversaries or it could conceivably be Compromised Militarily . A Realistic Defense
Budget to meet those Threats has been sorely lacking since Obama has taken Office , especially when it comes to the Recent Downsizing of the United
States Navy .

Believe it or not, he is probably the LEAST likely to get us into war. Hillary is in the pocket of the neocons, they want war with Iran, possibly with
Russia. I will take my chances with Trump thank you very much.

Some groups “will never be anything but our enemies”, Trump said after attacking Obama for doing deals with Iran. Only he
claimed shortly afterwards: “The world must know we do not go abroad in search of enemies, that we are always happy when old enemies become friends,
and when old friends become allies.”

Trump started off his speech on Wednesday by reading from a teleprompter in a rambling and incoherent manner, declaring that Obama has
“depleted” our military (false), the Iran deal was the “worst agreement” (why?) and that we don’t support Israel, “a force for justice and
peace” (absurd) – hallmark Republican conventional wisdom talking points.

He then did say some things that suggested he would not look to immediately start new wars in the Middle East and elsewhere, but it’s hard to take
anything he says on the subject seriously. He swung wildly from one position to its opposite on multiple occasions, contradicting himself at various
times from comments he made years to mere minutes prior.

For example, he said that bombing Libya was “a disaster”, but he then questioned why we aren’t still bombing Libya right now. He claimed that
“unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and aggression will not be my first instinct.” Yet he’s bragged in the recent past about
wanting to bring back waterboarding, or “much worse”, killing terrorists’ entire families, and would not be opposed to using nuclear bombs, even
in Europe. He remarked that there’s “too much destruction out there – too many destructive weapons,” but just five minutes earlier in the
speech, he said the US’s nuclear arsenal was in dire need of “renewal”.

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